Page 78 of Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes

Kara threw her trident against it, and a few fractures appeared in the cement, but the wall didn’t budge.

“I can’t get rid—” Brynne started to say.

But then her words cut off. She lowered her wind mace, her gaze losing focus as the blue smoke drifted into her face.

“Brynne!” shouted Aru, reaching for her sister.

The movement dislodged her T-shirt, and as Aru drew a breath, a strange odor invaded her nostrils. The fragrance of the blue lotus was unlike anything she’d ever smelled. It wasn’t sweet or floral or rotten, but like an emotion distilled to a scent.

It was the smell of vengeance.

The aroma of every perfectly timed biting comeback; a whiff of rage simmering just beneath the surface of the skin. It made Aru’s mouth water and her heart race.

It smelled…great.

The blue smoke wafted around them.

“It’s not dangerous at all!” said Aru, laughing.

“I’m not allergic to it!” said Mini, twirling around on the spot. “I feel…stronger.”

“Could this be a perfume?” asked Brynne, sniffing her wrists. “Because I’d definitely wear whatever this is every freaking day.”

Aiden nodded to himself, his mouth a grim twist, his eyes fiery as he whispered: “I’ll show them….”

Kara wasn’t as entranced as the others. As the blue smoke wafted back toward the lotus, she lowered the arm that had been blocking her nose and mouth.

“Something’s wrong,” she said. “Can’t you feel it?”

“I feelgood?” said Aru, spinning as though preparing to throw Vajra like a discus.

“But it’s the smell of…revenge,” said Kara. “That doesn’t feel like a good thing. It feels, I dunno, self-destructive or something. Can’t you tell?”

Self-destructive.

Aru used to joke about that word. On days when she woke up particularly hungry and discovered that they were out of cereal, she’d beep around the kitchen and say,T-minus one minute until Aru self-destructsin a robotic voice. It always made her mom laugh.

But she didn’t know where her mom was anymore.

And when she thought of self-destruction now, Aru was pulled back into one of the last times she’d seen Boo. He had just finished a lecture on vengeance and was fluttering around the classroom, sometimes settling on the pieces of armor that hung from the ceiling and other times, on Aru’s head.

“Not everyone fights fair in war,” Boo had said. “You may be tempted to seek revenge, but I caution you against it. You have no idea what kind of grief you could bring down on yourself when you do such a thing.”

Boo looked unhappy when he said this, and at the time, Aru had been clueless about his curse. She’d chalked up his grumpiness to the fact that Brynne had eaten the last of his Oreos before class.

Boo continued, puffing out his chest. “The great Chinese philosopher Confucius once said that ‘if you seek revenge, you should dig two graves.’”

Brynne scowled. “What if you have more than two enemies? Two graves isn’t enough.”

“You are misunderstanding!” said Boo.

“It’s a metaphorical grave, right?” said Mini. “Sounds really unhygienic otherwise.”

Aru raised her hand. “What if you set your enemies on fire and there’s nothing left to bury?”

Aiden looked horrified. “Shah, for the billionth time, why are you like this?”

“GIRLS!” Boo yelled.